We examine the effect of an accretion disc on the orbits of stars in
the central star cluster surrounding a central massive black hole by
performing a suite of 39 high-accuracy direct N-body simulations using
state-of-the art software and accelerator hardware. The primary focus
is on the accretion rate of stars by the black hole (equivalent to
their tidal disruption rate for black holes in the small to medium
mass range) and the eccentricity distribution of these stars. The
large parameter range and physically realistic modelling allow us for
the first time to confidently extrapolate these results to real
galactic centres. We scale our simulations to some nearby galaxies and
find that the expected boost in stellar accretion (or tidal
disruption, which could be observed as X-ray flares) in the presence
of a gas disc is about a factor of 10. Even with this boost, the
accretion of mass from stars may still be a factor of ~ 100 lower than
the accretion of gas from the disc.
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